research-article

Flexible object layouts: enabling lightweight language extensions by intercepting slot access

Authors:

Oscar NierstraszAuthors Info & Claims

OOPSLA '11: Proceedings of the 2011 ACM international conference on Object oriented programming systems languages and applications

Pages 959 - 972

https://doi.org/10.1145/2048066.2048138

Published: 22 October 2011 Publication History

Abstract

Programming idioms, design patterns and application libraries often introduce cumbersome and repetitive boilerplate code to a software system. Language extensions and external DSLs (domain specific languages) are sometimes introduced to reduce the need for boilerplate code, but they also complicate the system by introducing the need for language dialects and inter-language mediation. To address this, we propose to extend the structural reflective model of the language with object layouts, layout scopes and slots. Based on the new reflective language model we can 1) provide behavioral hooks to object layouts that are triggered when the fields of an object are accessed and 2) simplify the implementation of state-related language extensions such as stateful traits. By doing this we show how many idiomatic use cases that normally require boilerplate code can be more effectively supported.

We present an implementation in Smalltalk, and illustrate its usage through a series of extended examples.

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Cited By

Chari GGarbervetsky DMarr SDucasse S(2019)Fully Reflective Execution Environments: Virtual Machines for More Flexible SoftwareIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2018.281271545:9(858-876)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2018.2812715
Infante ABergel A(2017)Object equivalence: revisiting object equality profiling (an experience report)ACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3170472.313384452:11(27-38)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3170472.3133844
Infante ABergel AAncona D(2017)Object equivalence: revisiting object equality profiling (an experience report)Proceedings of the 13th ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on on Dynamic Languages10.1145/3133841.3133844(27-38)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2017
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Index Terms

Flexible object layouts: enabling lightweight language extensions by intercepting slot access
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Compilers
      1. Interpreters
      2. Runtime environments
    2. General programming languages
      1. Language features

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Flexible object layouts: enabling lightweight language extensions by intercepting slot access
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cover image ACM Conferences

OOPSLA '11: Proceedings of the 2011 ACM international conference on Object oriented programming systems languages and applications

October 2011

1104 pages

ISBN:9781450309400

DOI:10.1145/2048066

General Chair:
Cristina Videira Lopes
University of California, Irvine, USA
,
Program Chair:
Kathleen Fisher
Tufts University, USA

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 46, Issue 10
OOPSLA '11
October 2011
1063 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/2076021
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2011 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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SIGPLAN: ACM Special Interest Group on Programming Languages

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Published: 22 October 2011

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SPLASH '11

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SIGPLAN

SPLASH '11: Conference on Systems, Programming, and Applications: Software for Humanity

October 22 - 27, 2011

Oregon, Portland, USA

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Cited By

Chari GGarbervetsky DMarr SDucasse S(2019)Fully Reflective Execution Environments: Virtual Machines for More Flexible SoftwareIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2018.281271545:9(858-876)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2018.2812715
Infante ABergel A(2017)Object equivalence: revisiting object equality profiling (an experience report)ACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3170472.313384452:11(27-38)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3170472.3133844
Infante ABergel AAncona D(2017)Object equivalence: revisiting object equality profiling (an experience report)Proceedings of the 13th ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on on Dynamic Languages10.1145/3133841.3133844(27-38)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3133841.3133844
Chiş AGîrba TKubelka JNierstrasz OReichhart SSyrel A(2017)Moldable Tools for Object-Oriented DevelopmentPresent and Ulterior Software Engineering10.1007/978-3-319-67425-4_6(77-101)Online publication date: 6-Sep-2017
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67425-4_6
Salgado RDucasse SLaval JEtien A(2016)LowcodeProceedings of the 11th edition of the International Workshop on Smalltalk Technologies10.1145/2991041.2991064(1-10)Online publication date: 23-Aug-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2991041.2991064
Cavarlé GPlantec ACostiou SRibaud VLaval JEtien A(2016)Dynamic Round-Trip Engineering in the context of FOMDDProceedings of the 11th edition of the International Workshop on Smalltalk Technologies10.1145/2991041.2991056(1-7)Online publication date: 23-Aug-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2991041.2991056
Oda TAraki KLarsen PLaval JEtien A(2016)ViennaTalk and AssertchProceedings of the 11th edition of the International Workshop on Smalltalk Technologies10.1145/2991041.2991045(1-7)Online publication date: 23-Aug-2016
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Chiş AGîrba TKubelka JNierstrasz OReichhart SSyrel A(2016)Exemplifying Moldable DevelopmentProceedings of the Programming Experience 2016 (PX/16) Workshop10.1145/2984380.2984385(33-42)Online publication date: 18-Jul-2016
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Chari GGarbervetsky DMarr SDucasse SMurphy GJr. G(2015)Towards fully reflective environments2015 ACM International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software (Onward!)10.1145/2814228.2814241(240-253)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2015
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Dias MBacchelli AGousios GCassou DDucasse S(2015)Untangling fine-grained code changes2015 IEEE 22nd International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution, and Reengineering (SANER)10.1109/SANER.2015.7081844(341-350)Online publication date: Mar-2015
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